Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/204817.html
Author: Slavamakarov
Slavamakarov is one of the developers (or producers, I still don’t understand the top structure of Wargaming, but whatever, he’s one of the important people) and in this article, he discuss the problems with garage battles implementation. For those who do not know: garage battles are battles where you send one tank after another from your garage to the battle, eg. you start with E-100, you get killed, you take T110 from your garage and get back into the same battle. This article is especially difficult to translate, because it somehow presumes the reader to have the knowledge about the garage battle mechanism they want to implement, which I don’t have.
Furthermore, what I THINK the developer has in mind is this: start at lower tier, make your way up to higher tiers as you go thru your tanks and airplanes: yes, this mode will apparently appear in WoWp too.
I’ll basically write just a summary (the way I understood it)
Slavamakarov sees three problems:
- the battles are too long, which will make noobs cry
- if you enter the battle with a team of noobs, you are stuck there until the battle is over. If you think you are stuck there, you throw the game (leave the battle) and the other players get punished by your absence.
- it’s pure hell for the MM (when someone with two tier 1′s and one tier 10 joins) and people get confused, what they have to do to win
As possible solutions, he suggests
- the first point can be solved by more complex structure of victory – for example partial victory goals (as you progress thru the tiers) within the battle and a huge reward for winning altogether. (SS: the way I understand it, it’s a bit like raiding in Warcraft – partial goals are the various lower dungeon bosses, for which you get lesser reward – and the last boss is the main goal, for which you get the biggest “loot”) And – also generally not let noobs advance past tier 5. – at second point S.Makarov states that there is no clear solution here, it would be possible ti economically punish the players for leaving, but that’s just treating the symptoms, not the cause. It is also possible to limit the garage battles to company mode only, but the question is, whether company battles actually need such a mode. As for the leavers, in connection with the “you leave – you get nothing” principle, it’s possible to implement some sort of reward accumulation. In order not to draw the battle for too long, it’s possible to implement some victory condition based on performance.
- third point: here, Slava Makarov has an idea, he will tell separately:
Garage battle, in order not to drive the matchmaker crazy and to make battle outcome predictable, takes place strictly on one level. The rewards grow rapidly with tiers. The deck size (SS: the amount of vehicles one player throws into the battle) is fixed – additional vehicle slots are never awarded. One player cannot also mix arty/anti-ground airplanes and tanks/tank destroyers in one deck. If your team kills 45 enemies within 3 deck slots, it’s a guaranteed victory, each kills brings the team closer to victory of course.
The tanks and airplanes in the decks should be different from each other – the developers don’t want players to spam KV-1S in one deck. If there are no different suitable tanks, players can put the same tank twice, but they get no reward for that. As for the anti-ground planes, apprently there will be an AA defense respawn.
Comments:
- In comments, Slavamakarov states that the game doesn’t have to be 3-slot deck only, 5 slots are also possibility. Victory condition could be like in WoWp: victory points too.
- the aim is not to bring pubbies from random battle to this mode
- it’s possible tier 8 premium vehicles will somehow be limited in this mode
- the spawnpoints: there will be a set of them, it’s possible the engine will pick the most distant one from the enemy
- prototype garage battle was tested on Karelia, but there is no set of maps already decided
Sound fun. Any different mode now sounds fun.
What sounds fun is random terrain generator for maps: surprise and improvisation every time. But nah, nobody is interested…
Now that would be interesting, maps have lost strategic thinking due to repetitive nature.
Good point Nixxxie
Yes random maps would be great.
Old games used to have sth. like this. But i guess its not too easy to implement, because there have to be literally 10000ths of parameters to avoid strange looking mixes like a farm within a city etc.
What would be a great addition to the current game would be smoke.
What i remember ist, that they would like to implement smoke, but i think currently they cannot make shure, that some people make a config tweak which eliminates the smoke.
Until they cannot garantue this, we won’t see smoke :(
Well its said smoke will be server side and act as walls or terrain beeing non-transparent, thus completely hide tanks behind it. A tweak could only eliminate the visible smoke but not enable spotting the hidden tanks.
Imo smoke would give the game some new tactical elements
Smokescreen will be in WoWs, which is no sooner than next year so there’s some chance of copypasting the code.
Random terrain generator is quite easy to make and i would gladly sacrifice some map features to get it. Farm in the city? Who cares :) ? It would be in a different place every time and that’s what counts!
After reading this i am even more against garage battles. I’d rather they start developing combined arms mode, even as a separate game. I have quite a huge idea but it would take years to implement…
Check DCS Combined Arms. Years away hope we get there. Its the future..
I wait only for some kind of historical battles, i would love to smack t-34 with my panther hehe
Or nation battles at least.
Historical battles will be a fail…. All of those German noobs are crying for them because they want to be op and roflestomp russian tanks, but no one thinks about that u also need ppl playing t34s that want to be roflstomped by tigers and panthers…
At the moment we have only small maps, which are a huge advantage for the USSR and USA tanks, when the distance between the historical Tiger and the historical T-34 is less than 400 meter, some interesting things can happen. Besides that, there should be a 1:4 Tiger T-34 ratio.
and u want to have to depend on 3 other rand00m players (read : deep red tomatoes) to kill one tank or do u want to fight alone and be able to kill 4+ tanks on ur own?
I think they should go with the similar mode that is already in WT. You take a plane, and have two reserve planes ready when you die :)
i think they are sort of trying to copy down WT in a way with this… but again, WT is trying to separate itself from WOT and trying to be a different game. We will see what happens :)
it’s clear that WG dudes haven’t played WarThunder to see 1st hand how their “garage battles” work
WG overcomplicates things … but then again, it’s how they operate
the battle tier of your whole selection of tanks should be the tier of your best tank
you want to enter the battle with lower tiers than your best tank, this should be player’s problem, not the matchmaker’s
additionally, the selection process could be limited to 2 tiers between the lowest and greatest tanks selected
using the same tank twice – that’s a no-no
That’s true what you say and the tier spread is a good idea. However you have to remember that planes in WT are balanced differently than tanks in WoT. In WoT is difficult to fight someone in a tank a tier higher. To fight a tank 2 tiers higher and win takes a lot of skill or poor skilled enemy. On the other hand in WT even level 0 “backup” planes may be useful in high level battles. When defending the base they are very handy. If you get on someone’s tail in one and he has no allies around he will either need to run away or get shot down trying to out-turn you.
with gold ammo, the tier difference can be widened to 3 tiers (possibly even 4)
regarding WT, yes there are situations where reserve planes can be useful
but, the main and still unresolved problem is that planes in WT are unbalanced
they uncovered the fact that RU planes are under control o a russian team, while the rest of the planes are done by another (not russian) – this is why you see discrepancies with planes at the same tier
The problem with WoT/WoWp is that it is closer to a simulation of reality then WT and thus the pre-war tanks and planes are unable to even hurt the late-war stuff. It is also alot harder to fly a plane in WoWp then in WT due to some liberties taken in WT. While this may sound like critique of WT so should it be remembered that easier games are often more popular then more realistic ones.
Many people are crying for garage and historical battles but when those will be implemented players will disable them as they did with assault and encounter.
What if you get in the retarded team and you have to fight 5 times with the window licking team mates? Imagine the enemy players will be Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee and your team mate will be Benny Hill. Good luck enjoying Garage Battles.
The single viable implementation would be same tier and you have to pick two tanks of the same time. For example you`ll have IS3 and Tiger II selected, once your first tank dies you`ll get the second one.
Overall I do not think this kind of battle is worth the effort.
Point 2 could be fixed by a tighter tier-spread. Or having only same tiers in one battle. Why they did not consider this?
Thanks for the info map!
Can you really try and look again into RSS? there are no spaces at all in the feed, it’s just a wall of text. :)
SS, just in case – makarov is one of the core developers, he’s the guy that stands alongside serb and storm right at the top of WoT.
I wrote a whole screen of text on this and realized, its not up to me.
WG need to act now. I am burned out playing pub matches and Clan wars is for the elite.
I need something else or I am done.
When I see current playerbase, then the only fun thing I can think of is PvE mode. I am afraid that with WoT playerbase any other mode will be failure.
And I think I would not risk garage battles. Yesterday I get in team 3 guys platoon in tier VIII premium tanks. Those guys had 44, 44 and 46 win ratios. The more so 2 of them had less then 100 battles! Battle was totally onesided. Getting such platoon in garage mode would be terrible experience.
I gree, avarage playerbase of EU server is – RETARDS. Half team are mentally retarded, go in randoms games, teir10-8 team win who have less retards. In ru forums there is a lot of jokse about “skilled eu players” (there is very strong players, but we talk in avarage and bigest segment), How to own with E100 in Eu server when every team has per 5 arts, how to deal 6-8k dmg with slow unplayable tanks like E100 – go to EU. If WG indroduce roaming a lot of players from ru will came to EU pown retards. ANd if Eu players can write only think like, here playng +650 yers old, kids or mentally retarded from hospital lets why EU sucks….. What garage battle we talking about? Simple a lot of players simple will quit if you have total idiots retards 40-45% 200-800 eff raitings noobs tops tanks. Avarage team setups now is 47% 700 eff idiots, basicaly 1/3 of your team ALWAYS ussles humans with down’s syndrome, anotehr 1/3 avarage bad +50 or <10 kids, and rest if your lucky 1/3 normal players. This mode will fail in tanks, simple enemy will overrun you, and shot like idiots on spawn, and you can do nothink. Eu playerbase is chalange becouse most of players mentally retarded…. 2 yes ago there was 1-2 idiots per team, now fucking up to 10, they using pay to get tops tanks mode becouse are to dumb to level normaly tank.
i would just LOVE to see YOURS stats
Totally agree. If I want to take a break from WoT, because I can’t stand the level of stupidity anymore, I play a different game which is PvE. I am afraid to play PvP because of WoT, cause if I am mad on windowlickers I don’t want to meet different kind of them in a different game (which might not be true at all).
Yesterday I played on Westfield, I was in a heavy tank. All my retards went to the upper city, even meds. So I went to the lover city to have an overview of the valley and to be still able to help in the city if need be. I killed 2 meds in the valley and by that time only 1 our medium and 1 heavy were still alive. They still had 10 tanks. there were still 2 enemy meds and 2 heavies in the valley, plus 2 heavies in lower city that wanted to get me. To what forces my whole enemy team lost the game? I finished killing 8 and doing over 8k dmg and we lost. 2 last tanks got me in the end. Sometimes it is virtually impossible to win.
Now imagine a garage battle where you drive in a slow heavy or TD and by the time you get to the front (like center of a city) and most of your team is already on the second or even third tank.
Better idea would be historical battles with PvE elements.
But that’s exactly how it is in WT lol.
The thing is WT has different modes, where objectives are different than killing all planes. Sometimes it’s gaining control over the airfield or killing all ground troops. Battles are often won/lost before half the team get to play their second planes.
Is this WT style?
AFAIK, Slavamakarov wrote to allow the only tier per each garage battle – so, you chose KV-1S, balancer puts you in an appropriate battle level, and all the battle you are using only 6-level vehicles.
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